Step 1: Get a jar

Step 2: Weigh down the jar and fill with air

Now that you have a nice clean clear jar, need a way to keep it on the ground. With my set up, I had to put a rock under the back of the jar, filling...

I currently have a 55 gallon fish tank up and running, and needed my 10 gallon fish tank that held my fiddler crabs for something else. Being that fiddler crabs cannot completely live under water and actually need to out of the water, i was left with an issue, the solution, make a dry zone for them. I have seen a bunch of them for sale, but what is the fun of buying something when you can make it yourself :D

Step 1: Get a jar

First, get a large clear jar, being that I have a 55 gallon tank, I have enough room for a large "Mt. Olive" pickle jar, luckally for me, my wife likes pickles, I had an empty jar kicking around. Clean out the jar, if you must use soap, really rinse out the jar, while at it, try to peel off the labels.

they generally eat what is on the bottom of the tank, I have crab pellets that sink to the bottom, but generally it is a mix of the fish flakes, blood worms, and freeze dried shrimp. This has only really been set up for 2 weeks, but I am thinking that it will be an easy, stir up the sand and let the filter suck out the nasty water.

before he died, when i needed to clean it, I would turn off the bubbler, put an air line in the jar above the water line and flood it, then when everything was floating in the water of the jar, turn the bubbler back on but low so it slowly pushed everything out, worked for the 2 months it was set up

I know this may seem like spam to some people but bear with me. I found this ible REALLY interesting, I have been interested in Red Clawed Crabs for a while and bought some this weekend... i have decided to do something very similar if I ever decide to buy a bigger tank... as the commercial underwater lagoons are very expensive. For those who own crab, and would like to help out newbies like myself (or at least follow my progress) please feel free to join my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/redcrabdiaries

It kind of reminds me of this project I want to do, unfortunately not some time soon though. I thought of getting a plastic tub, attaching many bricks or concrete blocks to the sides of the tub (with ropes and drilled holes) and make an underwater air zone for swimmers in a pool. A bicycle air pump attached to a hose would connect to the air zone for air circulation.

almost the same idea of flipping a canoe over in the water, though I'm not sure that a bike pump would be enough to bring in the oxygen that you would need, if you had a big enough dry zone, and did hydroponic plants, you might be able to get away with one or two people in there for a short time. If built large enough to house a decent sized TV, couple of chairs, and had a pipeline that ran down into the dry zone to provide electrical etc, it would make "why don't you go out and play" much more interesting. I can see it now, "First one into the dry zone gets the good controller"

I have a board that completely covers one side, and the light cover has tin foil around the openings, leaving just enough room for the water to filter into the tank, so far, it keeps them in the tank lol

I did this for my fiddler crabs a couple years ago, except I used a fish bowl I bought at goodwill for a couple bucks. I'm glad you wrote an instructable about it. It's kind of sad that the male spends so much time attracting females, when there are only the same two girls in the tank all the time...